Freire, João Pedro BengalaPinho, Mário António SoaresMartins, Carlos André Sanches2009-07-022009-07-022009http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/1066Mestrado em Engenharia Zootécnica - Produção Animal - Instituto Superior de AgronomiaIn order to study the effect of brewer’s spent grain in digestibility, consistency of faeces, intestinal fermentations and morphology of the intestinal wall, 32 piglets, weaned at 28 days of age were distributed in 4 blocks of 8 animals and 4 experimental diets were provided: a control diet and three other diets enriched with different fiber sources (wheat bran, unwashed brewer spent grain and washed brewer spent grain). To study the effect of brewer spent grain, the control diet was used as the negative control and the wheat bran as the positive control. The values of fecal apparent digestibility of dry matter, protein and mineral fraction with brewer spent grain were higher (P <0.05) then those obtained with wheat bran. The consistency of faeces and intestinal morphology showed better results (P <0.05) with the adding of brewer’s grain, when compared to the control and the bran. We found unexpectedly low values for intestinal fermentations. In conclusion, the fiber of brewer’s spent grain has some beneficial effects, mainly when compared to wheat bran, but there were no clear indications of the existence of a prebiotic effectporpigletsbrewer's spent grainfibredigestibilityintestinal morphologyleitõesdreches de cervejafibradigestibilidademorfologia intestinalmaster thesis